Alex nodded. “We should go,” he said. “It’s an hour, Maya. He’ll be waiting.”
Maya looked up at Harry. “Can I ask you for something?”
“You can’t have the car,” Harry said. “That car’s been sold for the last time.”
“I don’t want the car,” Maya said. “I want to sit inside it. For five minutes.”
“Knock yourself out,” Harry said. “It’s open. Hasn’t had gas since 2005. If you see a five-foot-one Indian lady in a Prius pull up, just say Harry’s inside, polishing china.”
They rose heavily, Maya unsteady after two drinks.
“Look,” Harry said. “I’m sorry.”
Outside, the passenger door of the Datsun gave way with an anguished squeal. Maya’s heart decelerated — for a moment, she thought she had damaged Harry Sprague’s patrimony. But the author did not seem concerned with the vehicle’s presentation. The faded-blue seats were ripped, the roof lining was cantilevered over the rear seat, and the air was heavy with must and decay.
Maya climbed into Laurel’s seat and looked out the window. This is what Laurel saw. After a minute, Maya cranked open the door — at first it wouldn’t give, filling her with dread — and moved over to the driver’s side, Alex watching from the Escape. This is what Tim saw. She switched to the rear. She could barely slide in, so narrow the space there, and her pants raised a storm of dust as she slid across the shredded upholstery. This is what Max saw. She felt nothing — they were not here to be found, or she lacked whatever it was that would have made them feel present. Her imagination was not strong enough — she was not her mother’s equal.
From the backseat, she saw, though it had eluded her when she was in front of it, that the glove compartment was so full of papers it wouldn’t close. She returned to the front passenger seat and pried it open. There was a pocket notebook whose corners looked chewed by a dog, filled with notations and figures in a hand so minuscule Maya could not make out any of it; a receipt for a block of rosin; a page torn from the phone book (Ra-Re) with an addition scrawled over it; a fridge magnet with the calendar for 2004. Next, she pulled out a postcard — on one side was an antelope leaned into a gallop, on the other a picture of Laurel and a picture of Tim, glued to opposite ends of the card. They looked even younger than they had in 2004—they were yearbook pictures. Laurel was as pretty as Maya remembered, the yellow hair drawn in the middle. Tim, clean-shaven, looked embarrassed to be wearing a suit, its fit obviously clumsy even though only the shoulders were visible; the photographer had gotten him with his eyes just off the camera; they were piercingly blue even in the black-and-white photo.
There was an arrow drawn between the two pictures. Beneath had been written:
Most likely to be
Joyous and free
Especially
If you marry me.
Maya ran her fingertips over the photos. Perhaps Laurel was already pregnant with Max, only didn’t know it. But don’t all women know, even if they don’t know? Maya didn’t know. She studied Laurel’s eyes. She was smiling — carelessly, widely, and freely. She had a beautiful smile. Maya did not get to see it when the two young parents came to deliver their child.
Maya returned everything she had pulled out save for the postcard. She looked at Alex, at the entryway to the house. Then she folded the postcard, wedged it into a pocket of her jeans, and stepped out of the Datsun.
15
“I’m glad I’m drunk,” Maya said. “I wish you were, too.” Alex started the car, but they idled. “I’m glad we came,” she said. “I know you’re not, but I am. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know what I thought they could tell us,” Alex said. “It was a stupid idea.”
“You were scared,” she ventured.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said.
They drove without talking, the nine miles to Adelaide now drawing the opposite desire from Maya: She wished to get back sooner, recover her son, as if the nonpresence of Laurel and Tim would somehow lead to his nonpresence also; it had been well over an hour, full darkness. There was no true darkness in Acrewood. Here, the darkness swallowed not only the road, but the mountains. The mountains blotted out Laurel and Tim, but the darkness blotted out the mountains. And Laurel and Tim blotted out the darkness. The Escape was like a dinghy sailing on a sliver of moonlight. Thin white flakes swirled in the beam of the headlights. She took reassurance from the steady rev of the engine, the night’s only sound.
At the Dundee, their son was maneuvering between tables, in his hands a plate half as large as his torso, and the skirt steak in it even larger — the tips flopped over the edges. On this Wilma Gund did not skimp.
“Your son’s earned you a free meal,” she said as she dashed out of the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, meaning his conscription into table service. “We’re slammed on Saturday nights.” Max didn’t seem to mind. He deposited the flank steak at a corner table, his shoulders rising after being relieved of the weight, and had his hair ruffled by the man who was about to consume it. Seeing his parents, Max waved. Maya walked quickly toward him and embraced him, the man at the table hesitant to cut into his steak while, next to him, a mother embraced her son as if he had been lost. Ovals of gratinéed potato were dominoed next to the steak — Max’s doing. The sight of the food made her nauseous, but she was grateful for the din.
“Sit?” Wilma shouted from across the room. “I’ll get you soon as I can.”
“I’m not hungry,” Maya whispered to no one. She took Max and walked back to the front of the restaurant. “It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she told Wilma.
“Can’t offer much more than a free meal, honey,” the proprietress said, wiping her forehead with a sleeve.
“Is there a Mr. Gund?” Maya asked. “Do you run everything by yourself?”
“I’d love to stay and chat,” Wilma said. “You staying tomorrow as well? I forget. You can claim your meal then if you want.”
“Which of your bars do you recommend?” Maya said.
“Why, this one,” she said. “What’re you looking for?”
“Music,” Maya said. “Isn’t there music?”
They were sent to the jukebox at the Stockman. Alex attempted to object on the grounds that it was no place for an eight-year-old, but the Stockman turned out to be as full of cowboy-hatted ranch men drinking steadily at the bar as children dashing between tables.
Thundering out of the jukebox was a pop song by a girl who was never going to love again that was on the radio out east. When it ended, the male half of another family of tourists shyly approached the jukebox and selected country music. The singer warbled as if through a mouthful of liquor, but his message was the same — he was done loving. How much were these promises worth?
They settled at a table and watched the dance floor fill with the tourists and an older couple, these eighty apiece. The tourists danced too much and the old ones too little, their hips limited. A waitress whose breasts were insignificantly penned by a halter top brought Maya a vodka neat, Alex a ginger ale, and another ginger ale for the cutie pie. Max swung his legs up and down — his stool was too high for him — but without his earlier anomie.
“I’m hungry,” he said, adding to Maya’s guilt about dragging the two of them to do what she wanted. And did she really want it? She wanted only to keep distracting herself. Tomorrow, she would think about the conversation with Harry — tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. It was her birthday, after all. She would celebrate it by facing the truth. But there were hours and hours till then, an almost-endless collection of fifteen-minute increments. She was grateful to the booze for making it possible not to think of Laurel and Tim, and she was grateful to Laurel and Tim for the way they would push Marion out of her mind tomorrow. She had rigged it up ably.